A dwelling for a family of three located in a residential district in Tokyo. To live in a multi-storey dwelling in a dense metropolis like Tokyo is somehow similar to living in a large tree. Within a large tree, there exists few large branches, of which endows numerous qualities; -pleasant places to sit, sleep, and present places for discourse. While these branches are individual places under protection, they are simultaneously equipped with mutual relationships that allow one to sense the presence of one another across each branch. A network of relationships interwoven across many places throughout the branches. A proposal for a landscape where the duality of opposites; individuality and holistic co-exist through relationship.

Elevation

The character of this residence is that it is covered / riddled by holes. The walls, ceilings, and the floors are blatantly punctured and are interlocked three-dimensionally. Through these apertures, one is able to see and feel through to the spaces adjacent, above and below oneself, and furthermore, beyond what is clearly defined.

Plans

Through these apertures, staircases of varying angles are affixed, suggesting the access within this geometric tree. The rich spatiality conceived here consists of both an imaginative three-dimensionality of an Escher image, or, an otherness imagined in a scenery of people of the future beginning to inhabit a majestic ruin.

Sections

Using artificial materials and geometric order, the succession of voids in connectivity engenders a greater field of relationships. This concept of a residence akin to a large tree, with a tree-like ambiguity in its connectivity with the exterior, propounds a prototypical dwelling/city of the future.

This is the most interesting project I’ve seen on this site all year, I think. This house is pure poetry, the kind of raw weirdness that made Eisenman so polemically infamous in his younger days. This house is like a whole different universe. That image of the man stepping down the single step across the concrete wall dividing those is magical, as is the man reading in that room surrounded by windows. Unbelievable.

bLogHouse

Then you should check out a similar project by the same architect – “House N”. He’s one of the few that have the agenda to explore topological spaces.

Edward Burkhead

Thanks for the tip! He really does seem to push the envelope in a unique way. I appreciate that he manages to work with some interesting questions regarding privacy and living without resorting to the kinds of bluntly obvious design moves that characterizes the work of a lot of the more interesting conceptual architects of the last 30 or so years. He’s able to create conceptually interesting spaces that are also aesthetically attractive.